The principle of integrity must also apply to Romanian candidates' bid to run for the European Parliament

The signatory organizations are concerned to see a perpetuation of practices that are extremely detrimental to Romania’s image, in terms of letting candidates run for office while they have integrity problems.

We are specifically speaking about persons who have been convicted by courts of law on criminal charges or have been found by the Courts to be in a state of incompatibility, conflict of interests or unlawfully-acquired wealth.

It is unacceptable to have such persons make the law in a rule-of-law state, and for such persons to even represent us in the European Parliament.

We are concerned to find that former Senator Mircea Diaconu is collecting signatures so he can run for European Parliament, even while a definitive court ruling has found Mircea Diaconu to have been incompatible when he simultaneously exercised the public dignity of Senator and the position of Director of the Bucharest theater “C. I. Nottara.”

In another line, in November 2013 the Constitutional Court of Romania ruled unanimously that a legal conflict of a constitutional nature exists between the Judiciary and Parliament, specifically in the case of Senator Mora Ákos; his tenure had not been discontinued in spite of a judgment by the Romanian Supreme Court that found him in a state of incompatibility. At that time the Constitutional Court asked the Romanian Senate to make a decision in the case of Mora Ákos, based on the interpretation of Law #176/2010. The Senate’s lack of reaction, who decided to ignore the Constitutional Court’s ruling, effectively perpetuates a legal conflict of a constitutional nature and represents an extremely dangerous precedent for the other institutions of the State.

We first of all require Parliament to act with loyalty to the other powers of the State and respect the judgments that have been returned by the Constitutional Court and the courts of law of this country.

We require that entities that have authority in validating candidates in various elections apply the law in its spirit and letter to every distinct case, and deny validating such candidates as they do not meet legal requirements.

Continued activity in the Romanian Parliament, or collecting signatures so as to run for the European Parliament, by individuals who have been subject to incompatibility judgments is a violation of the commitments Romania has undertaken to promote the principle of integrity.

This also negates the efforts undertaken by Romania’s National Integrity Agency and courts of law to minimize situations of incompatibility, conflict of interests and acquisition of unlawful wealth.